\chapter{Introduction}
\label{chap:introduction}

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) convergence has enabled new business opportunities as a result of increasing vertical and horizontal integration possibilities. The Internet is increasingly used as a multi-sided platform that can connect businesses and people and inherently bring down transaction costs and thereby attract even more people. It forms the basis of the concept of smart cities where ICT technologies are used in common city-wide solutions to issues emerging from increasing urbanisation and inefficient utilisation of resources within the city. Sustainability is gradually becoming an underlying goal of smart cities and ICT is seen as a means to exploit the value of existing resources more efficiently by allowing new kinds of open innovation. Additionally, ICT can be used as a means to align the mindsets of city actors and create common sustainable goals by structuring and opening public and private data.

This master thesis investigates the concepts of smart cities, sustainability, and open data with the goal to understand how they relate to each other. \bigskip

\noindent In this chapter we will introduce the problem area and background of the research, based on the current smart city discourse, existing literature, and research that point towards our research questions. We then describe the objectives and expected outcome of our research. It is important for us to outline the importance and significance of our research, and so we have dedicated a section for that. The last section in this chapter is a reading guide explaining the structure of the thesis and what kind of information the reader can expect to find in each chapter.  \bigskip
